I never thought of the bird connection before, but it works well and I like it. If it was the origin of Balazar, though, then I think the connection was lost upon his death with the True Golden Horde. Griffin Mountain states how King Skilfil had to heroquest to meet the Hawk Mother to start taming the birds--perhaps he found some old temple fragment which told of the true nature of the cult Balazar brought.
The Yelmalio backwater idea is also good. Given the crude nature of the temples here compared to that of Sun County, I think that Balazar either had far fewer followers to go constructing temples or that his sun god did differ from that of the Sun County folk. Yelmalio refugees from wherever may have found their way to these outposts over the years and taken the temples for their own.
Maybe the next Bright Eagle Lord of Rinliddi has even now been born in the citadel of Dykene (or Trilus) and awaits his true enlightenment so that he can free Rinliddi from the hold of the Lunar Empire.
I'm an application system project manager when not immersed in Glorantha, but have college degrees in history (and a long time interest in mythology, fantasy literature, and other esoteric topics). And I do play RuneQuest in Glorantha (with a few Pendragon additions for passions and traits to help define the characters).
Harald
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